


So Much

by Starlithorizon



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Chubby Carlos, Fluff, M/M, Positive Cecilos Fic Drive, Seriously Fluffy, he is very important to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlithorizon/pseuds/Starlithorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They lay in the quiet desert night, one drawing absentminded concentric circles on the other, thoughts of love filling him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Much

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this one mostly finished for a while, and I finally turned it into a fully finished fic. It was originally mostly meant to be about chubby!Carlos, but then the positive fic drive and here we are. As if I needed any reasons to write this.

There was something, he supposed he ought to admit, to the feeling of worn hands lavishing him with attention. Carlos was not a young man, and he thought to admit to all of the things that accompanied that fact as well. He had witnessed his fair share of gentle men skip over the soft expanse of his belly, skittering away in quick avoidance. He had heard more than enough unpleasant comments directed at others with similar builds. Carlos had known many people who feared and loathed the fat deposits in their own and others' bodies, but this was Night Vale. Nothing conformed to his expectations in Night Vale.

More importantly, these hands belonged to Cecil, and dear lord was he unexpected.

The way he waxed rhapsodic about Carlos's greying hair, the way he called Carlos out on his bullshit, the way he looked at the scientist—it was amazing. It was alarming, and he still wasn't used to it, but it was the most incredible thing. After all this time, he had never known a love quite like this, dazzlingly bright and sweet and kind. He had never before known a love like sunshine, like the sea air, like home.

What he had found in Night Vale was the most incredible, bolstering thing. It filled him up, left cracks in his skin through which his outsized love could seep and stitch him back together again, whole and new and marked with what he felt. Night Vale had given him this. _Cecil_ had given him this.

"You're awfully pensive," the owner of the warm hands said lightly, the face pillowed on Carlos's chest tilting up to look the scientist in the eye.

"How do you know?" Carlos asked.

"When you get really thoughtful, you draw swirls and circles on me with your fingers. It's different when you're more aware. Those have more lines."

Carlos smiled and shifted enough to press a light kiss to the top of Cecil's beautiful, perfectly imperfect head.

"I write equations in your skin," he said. "Equations and chemical formulas. Things that used to work back home, things that are different here. I cover you in old science because you're both so beautiful and bringing it all together makes it feel like _I'm_ coming together."

Cecil's own lazy paintings, done in broad strokes along his ribs and hips and belly, slowed almost to stillness. It was like absolute zero, the cessation of all atomic movement, different only when he noticed it. It wasn't necessarily bad, just strange. Just different. Still warm, though.

"I know I spend a lot of time talking about how wonderful and beautiful you are, and I hope you know how deeply I mean it. I mean every one of those words."

"Yes, I know," Carlos said. "You're one of the most honest people I know."

"I lie on air on a daily basis," Cecil pointed out.

"You do it to protect the town. But that doesn't make you less genuine. I mean, you publicly announced that you thought I was perfect. That's brave and honest."

"You're far too kind," Cecil said warmly, demure as ever. Carlos petted his darling's hair, full of so much affection.

"Never kind enough."

They lapsed back into gentle silence, the sounds of crickets outside filtering into the spaces their words had left. Somewhere, far out into the starlit desert, coyotes yelped and cried. Soft breezes that smelled of sage and rosemary brushed through the leaves of the trees lining the street. The beautiful noises of the night made Carlos smile a little broader and return to his equations. He etched capsules of wavelength and gravity and heat onto the skin of the man he loved the most and was happy. They weren't perfect. Carlos could be termed as "chubby" if one was generous with the word, he was going grey, he was forgetful and overenthusiastic and reckless. Cecil was sometimes too happy to regale every aspect of their relationship to the entire town, he held a deep animosity toward the moon, he was sometimes very frightening, but God if those imperfections didn't make him all the sweeter to Carlos. Neither was perfect, but with the love of each written into the other's skin with fingertips and bones with words, they were both far more wonderful and precious than anything else in the world. They were a warm and sunlit home. They were the burst of wildflowers across the desert floor. They were cups of coffee with steam curling in fine little spirals. They were each other's and their own.

"You're doing swirls again," Cecil noted sleepily, snuffling into Carlos's chest and sighing peacefully. Carlos was more asleep than awake by this point as well, with the concentric circles spinning from his fingertips. He used those fingertips to lift Cecil's face to his own. Kisses were pressed against Cecil's forehead, Cecil's cheekbones, Cecil's nose, Cecil's eyelids. They were little blessings and little declarations of love, but they didn't stop Carlos from dusting one last kiss over Cecil's gently parted lips.

"I love you so much," Carlos said against skin. Cecil grinned, closed his eyes, and returned to his resting position.

"I love you too," Cecil said. "So much."

First, one breath evened out into something slow and steady and asleep, then the other. The world continued to spin and the night unspooled slowly into another day.


End file.
